1. Technical Field
The present disclosure relates to a medical tube fixing apparatus, and more particularly to a medical tube fixing apparatus by which a medical tube can be easily fixed by using a band-shaped adhesive member, which may allow to obtain the same results regardless of a practitioner and to reduce the operation time and the risk of infection after surgery.
2. Discussion of the Related Art
In general, after patients have been treated in a surgery, body fluids such as blood or pus may be caught inside of the patient's body. In this case, a drainage apparatus is used, which allows the medical staff to quickly discharge the body fluids generated in the patient's organs to the outside for quick recovery of the patient.
In the drainage apparatus, a medical tube for discharging the body fluids to the outside is fastened and used. The medical tube may include widely used ones which are a catheter used for discharging bile or abscess from the liver or stomach to the outside of the human body, a urethral catheter inserted into the bladder for discharging the excrements, or a drain tube for discharging the body fluid generated in the internal organs of the patient to the outside in a state that its one part is inserted into the human body and its other part is exposed to the outside of the body.
In recent years, a medical skin stapler has been widely used for sealing a surgical site in a state where the medical tube is inserted after a patient's operation is completed. The medical skin stapler, meaning a device for sealing the skin using staples, is an improvement of the conventional method in which an incised site of the skin is sealed with a suture thread and a needle at the time of a surgical operation or a cosmetic surgery. The staple used in the skin stapler has a substantially  shape. The staple is loaded on a cartridge of the skin stapler, and both ends of the staple are bent inward to seal the skin when it is pushed by and released from the skin stapler. In order to fix the medical tube exposed to the outside in such a sealed state, it is fixed to the skin using a method of directly tying it with a thread to a general medical band or the skin.
However, the medical band has a problem that the adhesive strength is weakened when it is used for a long time and therefore it should be frequently replaced. It also has a problem that a gap is grown between the medical band and the medical tube whenever the patient moves and the adhesive force becomes weakened, which causes the medical tube to be pushed out to the outside.
There is also a problem that the medical tubing may be detached and organs of the patient may be damaged due to insufficient adhesive force of the medical band. There are also other problems such as occurrence of infection due to leakage of pleural fluid caused by the detachment of the medical tube, and induction of emphysema of the lung due to air infiltration.
In addition, the fixing method of tying with the thread is not robust, so that the medical tube can be moved and thus the medical tube inserted into the inside of the patient's body can be released to the outside.
In view of these points, there is a prior art which is Korean Patent Registration No. 10-1064844 (published on Sep. 14, 2011) entitled “A Medical Tube Fixing Apparatus.”
However, the fixing apparatus for the medical tube has the following disadvantages. A fixed cap, a tube guide member, a tape, and the like must be separately manufactured, so that the manufacturing cost will be increased. In addition, it takes a long time to install the fixing apparatus of the medical tube fixed by the tape on the patient, and it is not fixed firmly during long-term use.
In addition, since the tape directly adheres to the skin, inflammation or the like may be caused during repeated use for a long period of time. The fixing apparatus is expensive to use because it is used as a disposable medical apparatus due to the nature of the medical apparatus attached directly to the patient's body and because when the fixing apparatus of the medical tube is replaced, the whole apparatus must be replaced.